which I had loaned to other people. Even though no one was home I knocked on their doors.
In Beatrice’s room I sat down on her bed, which was fully made up, and then took off my shoes and lay down on it. I was still very tired. I could smell her on my skin from the night before then realized it was only her sheets. The novel on the bedside table had a bookmark sticking out of it—a postcard from her mother, with a picture of Frank Sinatra on the front, smiling into a microphone.
The note itself was prettily legible, effusive in a faintly foreign way. “Darling, how wonderful it was to see you . . .” etc. and then I noticed the date: the twenty-ninth of November 1993—a few days after Thanksgiving break freshman year. This was several months before I met Beatrice coming out of seminar on the way to lunch.We stood in the melting snow, talking and getting colder; I tried not to show it. But it was like a window had opened up and let in some of that cold air.
Eventually I got bored of lying there and went round the rest of the house. Robert’s bedroom was surprisingly messy. There were clothes all over the bed, shirts, pants, socks, etc., probably from when he was packing his overnight bag. There were papers all over his desk, too, bills, printouts, and a letter from Clay Greene. Clay once explained to me why he still wrote letters. Every time I send an email, he said, I imagine cc’ing the editor of The Washington Post , because it isn’t going to disappear and sooner or later somebody will find it.
His letter to Robert was mostly about a guy called Stanley Krause, who worked at Goldman Sachs. Goldman had invested a good deal of money in Robert’s consortium, and they were interested in some of the warehouses and factory buildings Robert had been buying up, for their own use. Stanley wanted to make sure they “had their name down”—this was Clay’s way of putting it. “It’s worthwhile humoring these people,” he went on. I wondered if this is what Robert meant by temporary concerns. But there was also a picture on his desk of Peggy and little Ethan, swinging together on a swing in Central Park, with the tall blurry fence of the reservoir behind them. They seemed likely candidates, too.
AROUND FOUR O’CLOCK I THREW my duffel in the passenger seat, put my boxes in the trunk, and drove the ten blocks south to Johanna Street.
Every time I came back to the house I looked for signs of a break-in, but it seemed in good shape. The paint job looked almost sticky. Shrubs poked out of the beds in the front yard and the grass hadthe blue-green underwater appearance of a first growth. I brought my stuff inside, up the porch steps then up the hallway staircase to the second floor. The first thing I did coming in was check the wall phone in the kitchen for a dial tone. It flatlined, so I dialed up Robert on his cell.
“Listen,” I said, “are you still at Bill’s? Because I forgot something by the phone, a number. It’s on a subscription card.”
There was a wait and footsteps while he carried his phone downstairs.
“When did you take off?” he said. “I thought you were sticking around.”
“Tony gave me a ride home.”
He started reading out the 800 listing.
“Not that,” I said. “There should be something else, maybe on the other side. In ballpoint— Wait a minute, I gotta find something to write with.”
This turned out to be not so easy. The place was totally unlived in, but there was still the usual mess of junk mail and utility bills on the kitchen counter. Nothing to write with, though. No dried-out felt-tip or uncapped Bic, no golf pencils. “Hold on, hold on,” I called out, “listen, I’m going to have to call you back,” before I realized I could type it into my computer, which is what I did. Afterwards I said, “This isn’t really why I called. I wanted to say thank you. I’m in Johanna Street right now. I’m moving in. It looks great. My first grown-up apartment.”
“Take
In Beatrice’s room I sat down on her bed, which was fully made up, and then took off my shoes and lay down on it. I was still very tired. I could smell her on my skin from the night before then realized it was only her sheets. The novel on the bedside table had a bookmark sticking out of it—a postcard from her mother, with a picture of Frank Sinatra on the front, smiling into a microphone.
The note itself was prettily legible, effusive in a faintly foreign way. “Darling, how wonderful it was to see you . . .” etc. and then I noticed the date: the twenty-ninth of November 1993—a few days after Thanksgiving break freshman year. This was several months before I met Beatrice coming out of seminar on the way to lunch.We stood in the melting snow, talking and getting colder; I tried not to show it. But it was like a window had opened up and let in some of that cold air.
Eventually I got bored of lying there and went round the rest of the house. Robert’s bedroom was surprisingly messy. There were clothes all over the bed, shirts, pants, socks, etc., probably from when he was packing his overnight bag. There were papers all over his desk, too, bills, printouts, and a letter from Clay Greene. Clay once explained to me why he still wrote letters. Every time I send an email, he said, I imagine cc’ing the editor of The Washington Post , because it isn’t going to disappear and sooner or later somebody will find it.
His letter to Robert was mostly about a guy called Stanley Krause, who worked at Goldman Sachs. Goldman had invested a good deal of money in Robert’s consortium, and they were interested in some of the warehouses and factory buildings Robert had been buying up, for their own use. Stanley wanted to make sure they “had their name down”—this was Clay’s way of putting it. “It’s worthwhile humoring these people,” he went on. I wondered if this is what Robert meant by temporary concerns. But there was also a picture on his desk of Peggy and little Ethan, swinging together on a swing in Central Park, with the tall blurry fence of the reservoir behind them. They seemed likely candidates, too.
AROUND FOUR O’CLOCK I THREW my duffel in the passenger seat, put my boxes in the trunk, and drove the ten blocks south to Johanna Street.
Every time I came back to the house I looked for signs of a break-in, but it seemed in good shape. The paint job looked almost sticky. Shrubs poked out of the beds in the front yard and the grass hadthe blue-green underwater appearance of a first growth. I brought my stuff inside, up the porch steps then up the hallway staircase to the second floor. The first thing I did coming in was check the wall phone in the kitchen for a dial tone. It flatlined, so I dialed up Robert on his cell.
“Listen,” I said, “are you still at Bill’s? Because I forgot something by the phone, a number. It’s on a subscription card.”
There was a wait and footsteps while he carried his phone downstairs.
“When did you take off?” he said. “I thought you were sticking around.”
“Tony gave me a ride home.”
He started reading out the 800 listing.
“Not that,” I said. “There should be something else, maybe on the other side. In ballpoint— Wait a minute, I gotta find something to write with.”
This turned out to be not so easy. The place was totally unlived in, but there was still the usual mess of junk mail and utility bills on the kitchen counter. Nothing to write with, though. No dried-out felt-tip or uncapped Bic, no golf pencils. “Hold on, hold on,” I called out, “listen, I’m going to have to call you back,” before I realized I could type it into my computer, which is what I did. Afterwards I said, “This isn’t really why I called. I wanted to say thank you. I’m in Johanna Street right now. I’m moving in. It looks great. My first grown-up apartment.”
“Take
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